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Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Record Keeping and Farmers Market Sales Log

By Betsy WielandExtension Educator, Hennepin County

Recording expenses, labor, and sales records is an incredibly important part of good management for any farming enterprise. This can be very challenging in the middle of farming and come market day is often the last thing on the 'To Do' list. A 'Farmers Market Sales Log' was created to help assist farmers get started with sales record keeping at Farmers' Markets. Collecting this information is a great start for understanding your production costs. It can then use this to make many, many decisions regarding your farm business.

A Farmer's Market Sales Log template, with an example, is available online at Small-farms Extension. It is one example of the types of records that can be kept. The log can be printed and filled out as often as is helpful, but is designed to be used at each market day. This can be done for any product, whether it's produce, meat, baked goods, etc. Their data can then be compiled, hopefully monthly, but at least at the end of the growing season. Sections that are not useful can be skipped. If the log does not seem useful, at a minimum a person could write down product brought to market, product not sold, and money collected. That will provide some measure of profitability.